Horace Brettle - 4

Horace Brettle – 4

Horace Brettle, my father, was born in 1909, his mother, Mary Ann Brettle (nee York), died in 1913 when she was only 31 and he was 4 and his brother, John, was 6.  A few years later when he was 7 his father Arthur remarried and Horace found himself with a stepmother, Lizzie and a step-brother Frederick.  These were joined by further children of Arthur and Lizzie; Arthur Harry, when Horace was 8, and Lily, when he was 9.  Horace worked as a baker’s roundsman from when he left school, presumably at 14; part of his duties included fetching the baker's two quarts of beer from the pub, after the baker had completed his early morning bread making, to go with his breakfast.  Clearly it was not only workers in heavy industry who needed to re-hydrate after a hard stint of hot work!   I don't think my father got on well with his stepmother after losing his own mother at such an early age and he left home in 1928 when he was 19 by joining the army for a 6 year enlistment in the Royal Scots Greys at Worcester.  I believe that his brother may have enlisted at the same time in a different regiment but cannot be sure of this.  I have obtained much of the information about my father’s army service from the MOD Central Records Office, this can be a very valuable source of detailed information on any ancestor who has served in the UK armed services.

After training in Aldershot and learning to drive there Horace was posted to India.  The Scots Greys were a cavalry regiment who still retained their horses into WWII; part of the training involved playing polo to develop horse control skills  even for enlisted ranks so, rather unexpectedly, my father was a polo player, not a common sport in Old Hill at the time!  I still remember as a small child when taken for a "ride on a donkey" at a local riding school based at nearby Clent Hills that my father, to my great surprise, jumped on a horse and went galloping off: his horse skills had clearly not left him.  In 1935 having completed his service he was listed as a qualified machine gunner, and “transferred to the reserves”.  Being held in the reserves for a period was normal for soldiers who had completed their service, this enabled the army to recall reasonably skilled ex-soldiers for service at short notice in an emergency.  In 1935 an emergency was not too far off of course.  I think that my father worked on the London Midland and Scottish Railway possible at Old Hill Halt station as a shunter on leaving the army but again I’m not totally sure of this.

WWII was looming and in 1938 my father’s old regiment became part of the Royal Armoured Corp. and he was recalled to active service with them from on 1st Sept. 1939, war being declared on the 3rd Sept.  He was based at Tidworth Barracks in Surrey initially learning to drive a light tank but obtained leave on the 20th Sept. and married my mother, Bessie Priest, on the 21st Sept. at Rowley Regis Registry Office; one of the witnesses was Edith Brettle, Horace’s sister in law: I assume that his brother John could not obtain leave from his army duties.  My father then immediately boarded a train back to Tidworth and my mother did not see him again for 5 years: she told me that my father’s thinking was that the army pay for married men was more than for single men, “all was found” in the army so that he could save most of his wages for his return after the war and if he did not return then his wife would get a widows pension.  Clearly life was rather different in 1939.